The New Yorker has a piece on elevators, perhaps the world's most commonly used and most commonly taken-for-granted mode of transportation. It also recounted the story of a man who was stuck in an elevator for 41 hours after coming back from a smoke break (of which there's a disturbing time-lapse security video). The aftermath of the ordeal ended up costing him his job, his apartment, his money, and all contact with his friends. Remember, kids, smoking will ruin your life.
My favorite passage of the essay was the following, on elevator etiquette:
Passengers seem to know instinctively how to arrange themselves in an elevator. Two strangers will gravitate to the back corners, a third will stand by the door, at an isosceles remove, until a fourth comes in, at which point passengers three and four will spread toward the front corners, making room, in the center, for a fifth, and so on, like the dots on a die. With each additional passenger, the bodies shift, slotting into the open spaces. The goal, of course, is to maintain (but not too conspicuously) maximum distance and to counteract unwanted intimacies—a code familiar (to half the population) from the urinal bank and (to them and all the rest) from the subway. One should face front. Look up, down, or, if you must, straight ahead. Mirrors compound the unease. Generally, no one should speak a word to anyone else in an elevator. Most people make allowances for the continuation of generic small talk already under way, or, in residential buildings, for neighborly amenities. The orthodox enforcers of silence—the elevator Quakers—must suffer the moderates or the serial abusers, as they cram in exchanges about the night, the game, the weekend, or the meal.
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